The next evening Gerasim came again and asked:  
“Well, could you do anything for me?”
 
“Something, I believe. First let’s have some tea. Then we’ll go see my master.”
 
Even tea had no allurements for Gerasim. He was eager for a decision; but under the compulsion of politeness to his host, he gulped down two glasses of tea, and then they betook themselves to Sharov.
 
Sharov asked Gerasim where he had lived before and what work he could do. Then he told him he was prepared to engage him as man of all work, and he should come back the next day ready to take the place.
 
Gerasim was fairly stunned by the great stroke of fortune. So overwhelming was his joy that his legs would scarcely carry him. He went to the coachman’s room, and Yegor said to him:
 
“Well, my lad, see to it that you do your work right, so that I shan’t have to be ashamed of you. You know what masters are like. If you go wrong once, they’ll be at you forever after with their fault-finding, and never give you peace.”
 
“Don’t worry about that, Yegor Danilych.”
 
“Well—well.”
 
Gerasim took leave, crossing the yard to go out by the gate. Polikarpych’s rooms gave on the yard, and a broad beam of light from the window fell across Gerasim’s way. He was curious to get a glimpse of his future home, but the panes were all frosted over, and it was impossible to peep through. However, he could hear what the people inside were saying.
 
“What will we do now?” was said in a woman’s voice.
 
“I don’t know, I don’t know,” a man, undoubtedly Polikarpych, replied. “Go begging, I suppose.”
 
“That’s all we can do. There’s nothing else left,” said the woman. “Oh, we poor people, what a miserable life we lead. We work and work from early morning till late at night, day after day, and when we get old, then it’s, ‘Away with you!’”
 
“What can we do? Our master is not one of us. It wouldn’t be worth the while to say much to him about it. He cares only for his own advantage.”
 
“All the masters are so mean. They don’t think of any one but themselves. It doesn’t occur to them that we work for them honestly and faithfully for years, and use up ............